Understanding Urgent / Immediate Care

Urgent care is the delivery of ambulatory care in a facility dedicated to the delivery of care outside of a hospital emergency department, usually on an unscheduled, walk-in basis. Urgent care centers are primarily used to treat patients who have an injury or illness that requires immediate care but is not serious enough to warrant a visit to an emergency room. Often urgent care centers are not open on a continuous basis, unlike a hospital emergency room that would be open at all times.

The initial urgent care centers opened in the 1970s. Since then this sector of the healthcare industry has rapidly expanded to an approximately 17,000 centers. Many of these centers have been started by entrepreneurial physicians who have responded to the public need for convenient access to unscheduled medical care. Other centers have been opened by hospital systems, seeking to attract patients. Much of the growth of these centers has been fueled by the significant savings that urgent care centers provide over the care in a hospital emergency department. Many managed care organizations (MCOs) now encourage their customers to utilize the urgent care option.

Allowing walk-in patients is not a sufficient criterion to define a physician office as an urgent care. If the office does not offer the expanded services and significant after-hours care, then the physician office would not fit the definition of an urgent care center.

In the state of Illinois Urgent Care Ceneters are required by law to call themselves Immediate Care Centers so there is no confusion between an Urgent Care Center and an Emergeny Room.

Healthy Trust Immediate Medical Care offers Urgent Care Services at their Wheeling, Illinois clinic which serves the Chicago North Shore Suburbs of Wheeling, Prospect Heights, Lincolnshire, Deerfield, Buffalo Grove, Northbrook, Highland Park, Long Grove, Riverwoods, Des Plaines, Palatine, Libertyville, Glenview, Highwood, Northfield, Libertyville, Winnetka, and Bannockburn.

Allergies
Animal/Insect Bites
Coughs/Colds/Sore Throats
Sinus Infections/Bronchitis
Cuts/Lacerations
Diarrhea/Vomiting
Flu Shots
Vaccinations
No Wait Physical Exams

Ear/Eye Infections
Flu/Fevers
Minor Burns/Rashes
Simple Fractures/Sprains/Strains
Back Pain
Chemical Exposure
On Site Lab for Immediate Results
On Site X-Ray
Medication Dispensing Services

If you are in an immediate life threatening situation there is no substitute for a hospital Emergency Center, but 70% of all patients who go to a emergency Center can be better served at an Urgent Care Center for a fraction of the cost, and in a few minutes, rather than a few hours.